One of the first steps you take when you are estimating your gardening schedule is find your USDA Zone info. The zone info helps tell us things like average date of last frost and lowest expected temperature for your area.

A common way of estimating when it's a good idea to plant gayfeather is to refer to the USDA zone info for Decatur.

Planting Calendar for Gayfeather

Frost tolerance for gayfeather:	Very tolerant of frost.
When to plant:	Up to 7 weeks before last frost.

You can plant gayfeather earlier in the year because they are one of those plants that can tolerate quite a bit of cold weather.

The earliest that you can plant gayfeather in Decatur is February. However, you really should wait until March if you don't want to take any chances.

The last month that you can plant gayfeather and expect a good harvest is probably September. If you wait any later than that and your gayfeather may not have a chance to grow to maturity. You can get started a couple of weeks earlier by starting your gayfeather indoors.

Last Frost Date

In Decatur the average date of last frost happens on April 15. In the coldest months of winter you can expect an average low temperature of 5°F.

Since the USDA zone info for Decatur is just an average the actual date of last frost will vary from year to year. Since half of the time in Decatur last frost occurs after April 15 be ready to cover your gayfeather in the event of a surprise late frost.

USDA Zone Info for Decatur

Here is the info for USDA Zone 7b.

Average Date of Last Frost (spring)	April 15
Average Date of First Frost (fall)	October 15
Lowest Expected Low	5°F
Highest Expected Low	10°F

This means that on a really cold year, the coldest it will get is 5°F. On most years you should be prepared to experience lows near 10°F.

Plants to Grow in Decatur

You may be interested in your other planting guides for Decatur.